Janak Shiksha defies CIAA

Janak Shiksha Samagri Kendra (JSSK) has defied Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) directives to sack all staff working on wage and contract from April 14.

On April 2, after an investigation into the reported abuse of authority in the state-owned corporation, CIAA, the apex constitutional body to control corruption and improper conduct, had issued directives to JSSK conforming that the latter had abused the authority in appointing staff.

Two days on the deadline to implement the directives, the state-owned corporation has shown no sign to implement the CIAA directives.

Instead, JSSK has decided to "request" not to disturb its regular operation at a "pick season". JSSK has a monopoly in publishing text books for students of all government schools across the country.

"We have already published books worth Rs. 600 to 700 million and some others are on the pipeline; if we implement the CIAA directives, it would incur a heavy loss to our organization as we would be unable to distribute the books due to sudden human resource crunch," General Manager of JSSK Birendra Kumar Dash told the Post.

Defending themselves further, JSSK officials say that, among others, due to procedural hassles they are unable to implement the CIAA decision right away. If the CIAA directives are implemented, about 200 staff, who were appointed breaching the normal law, would loose their jobs at the publication house.

"We have been discussing about the ways to handle the situation," said Dash informing that his administration is urging the JSSK Management Board to request CIAA to be lenient on its directives.

However, CIAA officials say that there is no such provision or chance to change the CIAA decision once it is taken.

"Once our inspection finds that the directives are not implemented, we would take action against the responsible JSSK officials," CIAA Spokesperson Ishwori Prasad Poudel told the Post.

CIAA had also directed JSSK to establish a separate mechanism to figure out the number of required staff and make new appointments through open competition based on experience and qualification. However, the corporation is yet to create such a mechanism.